


when iron meets flesh [ON HOLD]

by frankscastle



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Cameos, Civil War (Marvel), Flashbacks, Fluff, Friendship, Guilt, Hank doesn't like Tony, Implied Relationships, M/M, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, Other Fandoms Not Mentioned in Tags, Past Relationship(s), Possibly Slow Burn, Referenced Characters, Stony - Freeform, Tony-centric, but only bittersweet fluff from the flashbacks, idk if i should continue, maybe smut if i feel like it, stuff might be edited, tags may be edited
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5282351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankscastle/pseuds/frankscastle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'The choice leads down the road of deceit, solitude, and the changing of skins, in the end only one shall stand in the remains of those that may perish.'</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>This is kind of rewriting the movie, only making it darker and gayer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when iron meets flesh [ON HOLD]

**Author's Note:**

> First ever fic. Idk how it is to whoever is reading but let me know if I should do more.

Most nights, it's a struggle. He lays down on top of the covers, never under blankets and his head rests firmly on the silk cased pillows. His body is stiff and it takes a little over 45 minutes for him to begin to drift off into unconsciousness. That's the worst part. When he sleeps, he's never able to control his dreams. It's the same exact three, all mashed together to make one.

It always starts out the same. In his dream, he wears a pristine black suit, not a thread out of place, the perfect size. It's exactly the same as the one he has buried in the very back of his closet, out of sight but never out of mind. He's sitting in the conference room at the Stark Tower, rifling through a briefcase- his, maybe. He goes through a journal. All of the pages are blank, except for one. It's right in the middle of the book, perfectly dividing two halves. Written in neat cursive are the words _'The choice leads down the road of deceit, solitude, and the changing of skins, in the end only one shall stand in the remains of those that may perish.'_ As he makes his move to flip the page, he cuts his finger on the sharp edge of the paper and everything changes.

The scenery is no longer in the Stark Tower, but on Barton's land. Tony is still in his suit, though now his hands are heavy with the weight of an axe instead of a book. The sudden sound of wood being chopped startles him and with a jerk, he drops the axe on the dirt floor, just narrowly missing his dress shoes. Steve stands in front of him, his axe gripped tightly in his hands, arms flexing and body extremely tense. He has his head lowered with his eyes on the wood he split in half moments ago. The scene is all too familiar to him...yet something seems off.

 _"Ya know, Tony..."_ He raises his head a fraction, eyes moving from the log to Tony. _"I always had hope for you."_ He moves from behind the stump the wood is placed on and slowly makes his way over to Tony. _"I thought you were different..."_ He finally makes eye contact with the man when he's nearly a foot away from him. Tony's only ever seen the look Steve has in his eyes when he and Steve butted heads on Vision and various cases previous. That look of mixed anger, disappointment, and cold determination. It's equal parts concerning and terrifying. _"...but you're just as much of a let down as your father said."_

Tony feels hands shove his shoulders, causing him to land back flat on the hard ground with a muted thud. He feels coarse, wire-y vine-like shackles wrap around his wrist, ankles and neck in a vice grip when he goes to block his chest and face from the swinging of an axe he predicts. Before the sharp end is able to get him, he's pulled down into he dirt. It gets everywhere, in his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. He feels like he's suffocating with the dirt filling his lungs painfully and the vines squeezing his entire body until he's gasping for breath.

Then it changes again and he's falling through a whole beneath the layers of dirt. He's not in his business suit anymore, now he's fitted in the Iron Man armor. Everything's off and black, but he can tell from the familiar feel of the cool metal touching his skin. It's a step up from suffocating under layers of dirt, but still unsettling. All communications are off and he can only barely see through the window in his helmet.

 _"You liked it, didn't you?"_ It's Steve's voice, only not. It's the tone that he had only moments ago, voice rough and words laced with venom. _"Didn't you, Tony?"_ It comes out harsher- if that was even possible- when Tony doesn't answer back.

"What?" Tony's body begins to heat up, as if he was falling again and flames engulfed his suit, but that falling sensation isn't happening. He can only describe it as someone continually placing him closer and closer to the sun. "I don't know what you're talking about..." Tony can't move his limbs. When suit is shut down, there's nothing to help aide the movement of the parts. He's trapped in his oven of an Iron Man suit of armor.

 _"You liked being the cause of death. You liked creating Ultron and having your **son** cause all that chaos and destruction. It's exactly what you wanted, wasn't it?" _Steve questions mockingly.

There's a tugging sensation in the region where Tony's ark reactor used to be. His chest aches and the feel of nerves being ripped out of him is so strong he's pretty sure he's about to pass out by now.

_"You **enjoyed** Pietro's death didn't you?"_

"No...no I didn't want that. I wanted the exact opposite!" Tony's never been one for begging. He sees it as a weakness. "I wanted everyone safe. I-I wanted a suit of armor around the world." His eyelids feel heavy, body tired and burning from heat.

Not-Steve hums, pausing for a moment before giving a dark chuckle. _"Safe? Look how that turned out,"_ is all Tony hears before he's rendered unconscious in his dream, but immediately bolts awake.

His skin is sticky with sweat, hair sticking to his face and heart pounding. He stands on shaky legs and makes his way to the bathroom, pulse thrumming wildly. He wipes the sleep from his eyes and glanced up at himself in the cabinet mirror hanging over the sink.

His skin is flushed red with blood rushing to the surface, and there are dark bags under his eyes. This is the point in time where he begins to wonder just how much sleep he gets at night. Tony can't remember the last time he had a good nights rest. Maybe when Pepper was still with him? No, she left after the defenses kicked in, back when the threat of the Mandarin was a thing and right when he began reliving his time in the portal during New York.

He turns the water on cold and lets it run across his hands, cooling the heated palms and fingers. He notices that he's shivering uncontrollably. His heart is still beating at a rapid pace from the earlier nightmare.

 _"Sir,"_ FRIDAY's voice cuts in on his swelling panic, _"readings are showing you have increasing anxiety. Should this continue to an extreme level, shall I ring a doctor?"_

"N-" Tony clears his throat. "No, just...I'll deal with it myself."

 _"Very well. Though I hate to not call someone, I advise you to take deep breaths and relax a bit with some tea or soothing music."_ He thinks that if A.I. could show emotion, she'd have concern in her voice.

To Tony, she's essentially the female version of JARVIS. He tries to think of her as a friend, although it's a bit hard to consider technology you're friend. JARVIS was his first friend, possibly his first _"son",_ but he's dead and now there's Vision. Vision, a synthezoid who continues to distance himself from Tony day after day thanks to his...intrusive methods. Tony supposes he himself is the only one to blame. He'd like to think that it's Wanda who influences the unease Vision apparently feels around Tony, but even Tony knows when his bullshit is just too much.

 _"Mr. Stark,"_ FRIDAY's voice brings him out of his thoughts.

Tony blinks, confused for a moment before he realizes that he's still standing in the bathroom with his hands still under the running water. "Oh yeah," he says and turns the water off, wiping his hands on the fabric of his sweats.

While passing by his bed, his gaze flits to the dresser, taking in the time. 2:03 am in the morning. Great. He's barely gotten three hours of sleep and he has a meeting at 8:00 with Fury and Hill. Tony's not going to be able to sleep after waking from that dream so he might as well make the best of his time until having to get ready and leave.

Tony heads for the mini bar and goes straight for the Scotch, giving a relieved sigh when he sees that there's still some left. Before Thor had left to go back to Asgard, he had hit up the bar in Tony's for a "drink for the road". He nearly cleaned Tony out and Fury didn't let him have more than a certain amount due to a few of Tony's _questionable_ acts in the past when too far gone.

He thinks about getting a glass, but instead opts to drink straight from the bottle.

"Something on your mind, Stark?" A husky voice drawls teasingly.

His toes curl and back tenses in slight surprise. He brings the bottle down, the base clinking with the marble. "You could say that." His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Uhh, FRIDAY, could you mind telling me why I wasn't informed of Romanov's presence?"

_"Ms. Romanov has access to all areas within her level of clearance."_

"Well, that's not dangerous at all," he mumbles. He pushes back the earlier anxiety and slips into his less worried, more snarky business persona. "Aside from you maybe having a bit of a crush on me, is there any particular reason you're in my suite, Agent Romanov?"

She's sitting at his table hidden by the dark the light of the mini bar doesn't touch. "Just a little something I came to tell you before your meeting with Maria. I would have just emailed you, but you know I have a bit of a soft spot for dramatics.'

"Indeed you do. Does this something you're telling me have anything to do with a certain deputy director?" He'd notice Natasha's tendency to stick to Hill's side like a puppy lately, so it didn't surprise him if she had a soft spot for more than just dramatics. "You scared I'm gonna bully Maria?" He swirls the alcohol around in the bottle, stepping from behind the mini bar and taking a seat in front of the agent.

"If I was going to be scared for anyone, I'd be more worried about you than Hill." She rolls her eyes at his childish behavior. "And no, this is not about her. It's about Steve."

This causes Tony to cease his toying with the contents in hand. "Rogers? What's up with him?"

"He's been a bit," Natasha hesitates, "...suspicious lately."

Tony scoffs. "C'mon, this is Cap we're talking about. When is he ever not suspicious nowadays. Ever since coming into contact with Snowflake Soldier during SHIELD's collapse, he hasn't been different. And Ultron only made it worse." His voice takes on a bittersweet tone towards the end and the shame leaks into his expression. He quickly shakes it off.

"Steve has been off. More so than usual. He's been taking a lot more vacation days than usual and I've seen him and Agent Wilson talking more than once about something _important_." She pulls out a manila envelope and pushes it in his direction. "I tried to get Clint to look into it for me before I went off on another mission, but he was adamant on the subject. So, when I was back from my last mission I took things into my own hands."

Tony takes the envelope in hand, pausing. "Just how much research did you do, Romanov? Or do I not want to know? Is this on a need to know basis? I loathe those."

"Let's just say, it took me quite a while to figure out exactly what it is that he was hiding," Natasha states.

In the envelope are pictures. Some of Steve incognito, driving, eating, heading into a bathroom, in a store. "Christ, 'Tasha. Don't you think this is a bit too much?"

"You're not looking close enough are you?" She asks, pointing to a figure sitting in front of Steve, back to the camera and the same figure with their back to the camera again waiting outside of the bathroom and browsing a store. "Look at the next picture and I'm sure you'll get what I'm talking about."

The next picture was Steve again, this time talking with Agent Sam Wilson as they exited a car in an area differing to that of the store. "Where were they here?" Tony questions.

"A few minutes away from Hell's Kitchen. They were outside of some abandoned warehouse here."

Tony's eyebrows raise. "Hell's Kitchen?"

Natasha huffs small laugh. "Odd name, I know. And with odd names comes odd people. While I was in the area, some of the locals...never mind. I'll get to that another time. Go through the rest of the photos."

He shuffled through and came across one photograph that captured his attention the most. He holds it up and waves it in the air. "Is this what Rogers has been hiding?"

"Apparently so."

The picture in question was Sam and Steve standing a few feet away from The Winter Soldier, who was sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair with his metal arm trapped in some sort of clamp. Zoomed in shots showed discarded plates of food and water bottles littered on the floor. It seemed that they had been holding him there for days.

There was a picture of Steve's face and it made Tony's art pinch with an ache. He was looking at the soldier with a look of adoration. The same way Steve used to look at Tony. _Used to_.

Tony set down the pictures, taking a swig of the almost forgotten Scotch. "Why'd you show me? Why not Hill or the boss guys up in the _Super_ department of the Pentagon?"

She waits a moment, thinking it over herself. "I honestly don't really know. It just seemed like something I thought you should know. If I take this up to Hill, then she'll be all over it and we both know she wouldn't let up considering the issue is larger than usual for something to be kept from her."

" 'Larger than usual?' No," Tony says sarcastically. "You know, I could just as easily take this up to the big wigs. They don't really like me, but I'm sure they'd listen since Snowflake is involved."

"You wouldn't," Natasha says it with confidence and it annoys Tony just a little more than he'd like it to.

"Oh? And why not?" Tony challenges.

She smirks, crossing her legs. "Because as much as you despise Bucky, you'd never do anything to him without cause for extreme actions."

"His innocent kill count is _pretty_ high and he worked for HYDRA while said count was going up, up, up. That isn't enough?"

"You and I both know that he was brainwashed. And surprisingly enough, the guys up in the Pentagon aren't bothering to look for him since he's believed to be dead." That's news to him.

"Dead?" He's staring at her, expecting her to elaborate.

Nat glances up at him and shakes her head. "Hey, don't look at me. I may be a snoop, but I've got work too. Plus, I've been busy gathering intel on Hell's Kitchen. Which means you'll probably see me at the meeting with Hill and Carter."

"Hell's Kitchen got anything to do with Mr. Snowman?" Tony asks, bitterness shadowing his words.

Raising an eyebrow, Natasha stands, ready to head out. "No, it has nothing to do with him. Not that I know of and I know of a lot of things. I'll see you at the meeting." She stops at the door, head turning so Tony can only see one side of her face. "Don't show those to anyone, Tony. Steve is still my friend and I gave you those pictures in confidence that you won't take those to anyone other than me."

Tony bites his lip, eyes flickering to the pictures and back to her. "We'll see, Romanov. I'll let Steve off for now." He can tell she's not too happy with his answer, but that's the best she's going to get for now. "Say hi to Hill for me," he calls out to her, the door slamming harder than needed.

After she leaves, he's left with deafening silence. He takes a long drink of the Scotch, the alcohol burning his throat comfortingly.

Tony sifts through the pictures, one after another causing him to get closer to breaking his _promise_ with Romanov. (He uses the term loosely). The picture of Steve gazing at Bucky makes his stomach turn and he's close to having all that Scotch come right back up.

He tosses the picture down. It slides across the surface, falling off the edge of the wooden table and onto the floor.

"FRIDAY."

 _"Yes, sir,"_ she answers.

"Noise cancel the place for me, will ya?" Tony stands up and pushes the chair behind him with the back of his knees.

_"I should advise you that noise cancelation may be a risk to-"_

"Nonsense. I've got the suit underneath here. No one's going to break in to HQ right now. Cancel out the noise now," he says in a clipped tone.

She gives an unhappy hum- did he program her to do that? _"As you wish, sir."_

A beep sounds to inform him of the action and Tony mulls over what to do next. "Do me a favor and play me something...jazzy, but not too jazzy with a hint of just about every genre. And make it kind of sad, but not too sad." Immediately, a slightly upbeat song begins to play and Tony walks around in a figure 8, nodding his head to the beat. "How much Scotch do I have left?"

 _"Just that bottle you have in your hand, sir. Mr. Thor seems to have taste for that particular drink,"_ she informs him.

"Figures he'd take my favorite," he murmurs to himself. "Order me some for tomorrow. I'd like to assume that I have vodka?"

_"Yes, but sir, need I remind you that you have a meeting in just 5 hours and 25 minutes. I'm not so sure being intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness is acceptable."_

He ignores her and plops down on his leather sofa, head leaning back against the top of one of the cushion. "Love is torture isn't it, FRIDA?"

_"I'd assume it's pleasant at times, sir."_

Tony sighs. "Quit calling me sir. You're not JARVIS, you don't have a British accent. Call me Tony."

_"Alright, Tony. But you and I are both aware that you could program me to have an accent."_

"I don't wanna. You're not JARVIS and it's mean of me to even compare you to JARVIS." He laughs, rubbing his face with a hand. "Look at me, I'm having a conversation with AI." He shifted his head, glancing at his iPhone. "Apple has nothing on me." He looked back up at the ceiling, narrowing his eyes with a smirk. "Suck it, Jobs. I have a girl better than SIRI."

_"Tony, I'm not so sure cursing Steve Jobs will make you feel better. He isn't alive anymore. What good would that do?"_

"I dunno, FRIDA. I've got no Pepper and I can't get a proper sleep at night. What good does anything do anymore?"

For a moment, there's no answer. Then comes, _"Shall I call Captain Rogers?"_

"No." He takes a small sip from the bottle, fingers slippery and hot from the sweat. "Never again with Rogers. Turn on the TV."

The TV flickers on and Tony mindlessly watches some ad for dog training on repeat for an hour, thinking back to before New York. When he and Steve were on decent terms but still starting out wrong at the same time. He thinks back to when he was face to face with him on that helicarrier, with Loki clouding their judgement. They traded precise jabs that didn't cause much damage to each other. It's when he starts to remember his quiet nights with the man that he realizes he's been sitting on the couch for God knows how long.

His eyes burn as he blinks and his limbs feel heavy, feet prickling from falling asleep.

"What time is it?" He asks.

_"It is 3:57 am."_

Tony groans and gets up, cracking his back. "Bring up the construction plans for the new training facility. Still can't sleep," he mumbles.

_"Are you sure you don't want any sleeping pi-"_

"I'm absolutely sure. Now, let's take a look at those blueprints shall we?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts??


End file.
